Once in a while, you come across statements that make a profound impact on your leadership outlook. Below are some takeaways by some global leaders.
“I think it’s important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. The normal way we conduct our lives is we reason by analogy. [With analogy] we are doing this because it’s like something else that was done, or it is like what other people are doing. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths…and then reason up from there.” —Elon Musk, YouTube video, First Principles
What a great insight for any leader. When you reason from first principles you focus on the details that matter.
“There is a great story about how Steve carried a block of wood around the office while the team was creating the iPhone. He wanted to remind everyone around him that things should be simple. Jobs understood that technology is only as powerful as the ability for real people to use it. And it’s simple, usable functionality—not ridiculous over-engineering—that makes for technological power. —Bill Wise, MediaBank, as appeared in the Business Insider, October 2011
How do you make your products simple? How do you enable customer convenience as part of your value addition? If you have had a chance to not only see and hold the iPhone but use it, you understand the power of simplicity with great functionality.
“The semantic web today is all around us. It is immersive, ubiquitous, informed, and contextual. The semantic bank will have these features, too. It will prompt us with the things we need and warn us against doing things that will damage our financial health. It will be personalized, proactive, predictive, cognitive, and contextual. We will never need to call the bank, as the semantic bank is always with us, non-stop and in real-time. As a result, nearly every bank function we think about today—paying, checking, reconciling, searching—go away as the semantic bank and web do all of this for us. We just live our lives, with our embedded financial advisor and the core utility of banking as an extension to our digital lives.” —Chris Skinner, author of ValueWeb
The bank of the future shall offer two services – save me time and help me succeed. Banks must leverage form technology to save the customer time and help improve their lives.
Copyright Mustapha B Mugisa, 2020. Mr. Strategy. All rights reserved.
